Sunday, April 27, 2014

Country matters #5

How many of us, if we
are really honest, can hand-on-heart say that they have had lunch in Pirongia? Well, I did today.

I was invited to join
William Chen, New Zealand’s greatest ever magazine designer and a former
colleague of mine at Metro, and Peter Shaw,
art/architecture writer and curator and a former colleague of ours at Metro, for lunch at Peter’s house near
Pirongia. It is only a 30-minute drive, I like my old friends and was curious
about the Shaw house, as it will be known in future architecture histories. It was
the last house designed by Jim Hackshaw, a member of the massively influential Group
Architects, and it is wonderful.

Peter took us to the
Pirongia market which is, frankly, a pale shadow of the one in Cambridge but it
means well. The gingerbread men were sharply priced and, my children report, taste
awesome.

Then we drove halfway up Mt Pirongia which is a spectacular exploded
volcano and affords a spectacular view north to Hamilton and beyond (Bombays
and Coromandel), east to Maungatautari and southish to decent peaks I’d never
heard of. I said that from the bird sanctuary on Maungatautari one can see
Taupo. Peter trumped this with the fact that from their house they can see
Ruapehu glowing pink in the sunset.

Peter had promised
curried-egg sandwiches for lunch, and he did not fail us. I was apprehensive –
this didn’t sound like food to me – but it was good. William cannot help
himself in these matters and so photographed the dish from several angles, then
took the plate to another table with better lighting and arranged three elegant bowls around them and photographed them again (as seen above). Once an art director,
always an art director.

Like me, Peter has to
go to Auckland for work occasionally and, like me, he hates it and can’t wait
to get home. So lunch conversation was largely about that – until William and I
got onto magazine and book publishing gossip. Peter had a view of the industry
too. So that took a while.

Next we went to visit
the hens so William could collect the eggs. William is the most fastidious, urban,
non-livestock-friendly person I know but the chickens were amenable. Then there
were feijoas to harvest and, later, eggplants, carrots (two varieties) and
chillies (two varieties) from the magnificent vegetable garden, so William and
I returned to our respective homes well laden with provisions.

When not listening to the White Album, Elton John and Carole King, in his early teens a future international pop star used to bike to Pirongia from Te Awamutu, and back, just for something to do. 11km each way.